Has anyone had a bad Pre-Eclampsia story?

Meghan - posted on 04/25/2012

I had undiagnosed preeclampsia with my second daughter. The pregnancy was hard, but I have a small frame (5'1) and big babies (8lb+ both of them) and I hadn't really been watching my diet that well so I figured I had just gained too much weight and that's what was causing me to be so uncomfortable.

I had a scheduled c-section, right on time. Had some BH contractions before but not too bad. As soon as they started the operation I felt freezing cold and my head felt like it was going to explode. I have had migraines since I was about 14 but I've never felt a pain as bad as that. I kept telling my husband that my head hurt, my head hurt so much, but I get the feeling I might have been mumbling.

They took her out and I remember someone saying something about there being a lot of fluid. I kept asking "Is she ok? Is my baby ok?" They told me she was perfect and showed her to me and then....(I thought) I fell asleep. I woke up back in my room with my Dr,, nurse, and hubby all standing over me looking scared as shit. They were asking me if I was okay and I was like "I feel awesome, my headache is gone." Then they told me I had a seizure, that I had to get a CAT scan and that I'd had undiagnosed preeclampsia.

It didn't seem very scary to me....except the part about getting a brain scan...that freaked me out a little. I thought everyone was crazy. I kept telling them that I had just taken a nap and it was okay, honestly I felt great now. After I went home from the hospital I was terrified because they told me that it was possible I could have another seizure. That was the only part that really terrified me, with my hubby being at work and me home with 2 kids I swear I had nightmares about having a repeat seizure and dropping the baby, or knocking myself out and then the baby and 2.5 yo being alone for hours till he came home. But luckily everything turned out fine.

Now I'm pregnant again and they keep talking about things we can do to prevent it or monitor me more closely this time around. It's a little scary but also a lot surreal. I just keep agreeing with what they say but my brain still keeps insisting that all I did was take a nap and thank goodness that headache went away...

Heather - posted on 01/07/2012

I had undiagnosed pre-eclampsia with my son (2nd pregnancy) he was born at 32weeks, weighed 1620g and spent a month in hospital (about a week in ICU and 3 in special care) At 20 weeks my blood pressure started getting high so my doctor put me on Methyldopa. Over the next 10 weeks I began to feel very ill and developed every single symptom of pre-eclampsia, blurred vision, the pain in my sternum (which was essentially my liver) pain in my kidneys, and blood pressure reading that were just through the roof, so my doctor just kept upping the dose of the methyldopa tablets and sent me home to take it easy with an 18month toddler at home! My doctor went on a holiday for 4 weeks at the end of November 2010 and before she left she explained to me that i needed a urine test that would detect any protein in my urine which would in turn lead to diagnosis of pre-eclampsia. It was a Friday afternoon and she was going on holiday so she told me if the protein test came back positive someone would call me and we'd go from there. I didn't hear a word for a month so I figured it must've been ok. My next appointment was the 24th December 2010 (4 weeks from my last appointment) and I was 32weeks. By this stage I was very unwell, I'd swollen up like a balloon and my blood pressure was purely uncontrollable on the maximum dose of methyldopa. My appointment was 9 am on xmas eve, as it was xmas I was running around getting shopping done - thinking I was ok as my doctor had told me so. My doctor took one look at me, checked my protein results from a month ago along with my blood pressure which was 160/210 on methyldopa 4 times a day - she panniked and sent me to the hospital straight away where the nightmare began. At no stage were we ever sat down and told what pre-eclampsia was, the risks involved and the detrimental health problems incurred. I was put on a monitor for 8 hours, bubs heart beat was a steady pace and didnt seem under stress, at this point we still had no idea what was going on! They sent us down to the birth suites at 7pm on xmas eve and we were told that our baby would be born early as I was very unwell. I was pumped full of drugs, my blood pressure was through the roof, i started being induced while the doctors decided back and forth for the next 12 hours wheather to do a c/s or wheather i can give birth naturally. As it was xmas and the c/s dept was fully booked with elective c/s, they preferred me to give birth naturally and so my husband and I were left to try to give birth to my breach baby vaginally on my own. It wasn't until 10pm on xmas night that someone checked us and discovered he was breach (frank breach poisition - bum first) we were rushed to the theatre where I was blacking out, passing out between contractions, and was really really unwell. I had an experience I can't explain fully, while I was blacked out just before matthew was born, I had an out of body experience where I saw myself lying on the table, I spoke to myself and told myself to wake up, I had to push him out or he or I would die. I hadn't felt matthew moving, I hadn't had a contraction for what seemed like 10 minutes or so! Something in me shifted and I woke up and on the next contaction I Pushed matthew out, bum first, no pain relief and blood pressure through the roof. Matthew wasn't breathing and I had fallen unconscious. Apparently they worked on his breathing for 10minutes and rushed him to ICU where he would need help over the next few days. I didn't wake up until the next morning and was told he'd been born on xmas night and his weight and where he was etc. It wasn't until after our 36hour nightmare that we started to realise how dangerously close we'd become. It became clear and evident that my doctor simply missed my pre-eclampsia to the point where we almost paid the ultimate price. Her holiday was more important that the health of her pregnant patient. I got to hold my son for the first time 4 days after he was born and just cried and cried and cried! I stayed in hospital for 5days and Matthew stayed in hospital for a month (a week in ICU and about 3 in Special Care) It took me a long time to deal with what we went through, I still have alot of anger and sometimes still get upset when we tell people of our expierence. We are part of 2% of the Australian population that suffer from undiagnosed pre-eclampsia and it becoming evident in the 2nd pregnancy not the 1st!! We were just so lucky and thankful that Matthew and I survived our ordeal. I put it down to that single moment when I saw myself on the table in the theatre. By all odds we shouldn't have made it. Thank god we did!!!! Matthew is now a healthy one year old and is doing so well. We thank god everyday that he survived.

Alicia - posted on 05/22/2011

I knew I was pregnant at 5 weeks...

Brandy - posted on 05/18/2011

omg alicia you didnt even know you were pregnant and you had been to the dr that many times?! thats crazy, you are so lucky everything turned out ok. congratulations

Alicia - posted on 05/17/2011

When you find out your pregnant for the first time it's supposed to be the happiest time of your life. My pregnancy was hell from the start. I was told that my son was a girl, only to find out a few weeks later that the pink walls and dresses weren't going to work! At around 20 weeks I noticed I was swelling quite a bit, but was told by other mothers that this was completely normal, and this being my first pregnancy, I believed them. At 24 weeks I thought I was going to explode, so I called the doctor's office and was told to come in right away, only to find out that my doctor was on vacation and had no on call doctor. The nurse checked my blood pressure and it was 140/90, not too big of a deal I thought. She also told me that I had swelling of a 35 week pregnant woman. I was sent home with the supplies to do a 24 hour urine. The doctor didnt seem concerned, so I wasn't either. He put me on labetalol, which I couldn't take because everytime I tried to sit up I couldn't see or hear no matter how slow I would get up. I called my dr to inform him, but he didn't do anything about it. I told him I couldn't take it anymore. The next couple of weeks my blood pressure was slowly getting higher. At 28 weeks I was having horrible headaches. I was also cramping a little, but figured this was just part of being pregnant. I went to the hospital because my blood pressure was high. I found out that I was in labor. I was given a shot of brethene to stop the contractions and got griped out by the nurse for not taking the labatelol even after I had told her how it was making me feel and that my dr knew. I began taking aldomet 3 times a day, which wasn't touching my blood pressure. It continued to rise. All this time I am still working because my dr said I would be fine. At 33 weeks I went back to the er because my head was hurting so bad I couldn't see. My bp was 166/110. I was given a shot of demoral and sent home. I returned the next night with an even higher bp and 1 and 1/2 hrs later when the dr finally called back he said that there wasn't anything he could do and sent me home! I went back the next night with a bp of 180/110 and finally admitted and given mag and iv bp med. I spent 4 days in the hospital and then was taken off the mag and bp meds and sent home on the aldomet that wasn't working. He told me not to check my bp. I had an appt the next morning and at this time I was so miserable and sick I was going to tell him to take the baby. I just couldn't do it anymore. I stayed with my mom that night because I lived by myself. The last thing I remember was talking to my friend and telling her my bp was 196/120, but wasn't going back to the hospital because I was told not to. I didn't make it to that appt. At about 430 am the seizures began. I was told that I was talking like a little kid and fighting with everyone. I wouldn't let the emts take me to the hospital, so my mom and dad had to carry me to the car. My dad called my dr at home and he said to take me to hospital and he would be in later that afternoon to talk about sending me to a larger hospital. There just wasn't time. By the afternoon, I would surely not be alive. When I got to the hospital, the nurses had called another dr and he was there in 10 min. My dr ended up showing up after this other dr but was told he could no longer be my dr. When the nurses told me I was pregnant, I started freaking out again because I had no idea! Several seizures later they were able to get them to stop long enough to give me anesthesia. I woke up a day and 1/2 later in icu no longer pregnant. I couldn't see my baby until that evening and it was miserable. When I finally got to see him it was all so confusing. I was still on pain meds and anti anxiety medication, so it didn't even feel real. I didn't get to see him be born and did not get to hear my first baby cry. It was a very emotional and scary experience. It took me until he was about a year old to really bond with him. I love him more than life itself and would not change anything, because, miraculously, he came out healthy and unharmed.

Brandy - posted on 04/26/2011

i dont know how severe it may seem but to me it was horrifying. when i was 26wks i started feeling weird and dizzy i noticed my nose looked alot bigger but everyone told me it was normal i didnt have much swelling other than it looked like i had a goose egg under my skin on my leg, that night i woke up and could not stop vomiting, by the time we got to the hospital i could barely breathe so they hooked me up to an iv and as i was being moved onto a gurney my dr was telling me i had to be transfered 2 counties away to another hospital or i may die, then she told me the baby would die, i cried all the way there and after being admitted to the icu i was told i had hellp syndrome, and that i was hooked up to the mag after then i started to go into cardiac arrest from an overdose of the mag the two weeks in the icu was a blur and my understanding was as long as i could keep the baby in my body she might be ok. i couldnt walk and i was on a liquid diet and i felt like i was dying for the most part and very confused. the day they put me in a regular room i was thinking they might send me home on bed rest but they did an ultrasound and discovered bad cord blood flow and had to do an emergency c section. i dont remember but im told i went crazy and wanted to leave the hospital, apparently i was accusing them of trying to kill my baby. i had jenna at 28wks she was 2lbs 6oz i was really angry because they had to take her immediatly to the nicu so i didnt get to hold her or even see her, my family saw what she looked like but i could not go to the nicu until the next evening and that was because i made my husband steal a wheelchair and help me out of bed to go see her, but because i was still hooked up to stuff the nurses interveined when i set off alarms. by the time i got to the nicu jenna was already bundled in a hat billy goggles etc and she had ivs all over her, i had no idea what she looked like and it frightened me because she was all red and furry we couldnt hold her yet either so i just sat there staring at her inside that little box wondering if she knew who i was. i stayed in the hospital for about a week and the day that i had to leave i got to hold her for exactly one minute and then i had to leave it was so sad. our home was about an hour and 15 mins away and i couldnt drive i was so scared that something would happen to her while i was gone, but i got a ride to the hospital every day except one and i was able to call whenever i wanted. we did that for 3 months and the day she was to be released she turned blue and had to be rescusitated so we had to wait another week and she was finally sent home on an apnea moniter. now shes a happy rambunctious 2 yr old that drives me crazy lol oh and nobody in my family has ever had any kind of problems so it was all very new to all of us.